Good Girls Go Bad, For a Day

By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM

Published: October 19, 2006

IN her thigh-highs and ruby miniskirt, Little Red Riding Hood does not appear to be en route to her grandmother's house. And Goldilocks, in a snug bodice and platform heels, gives the impression she has been sleeping in everyone's bed. There is a witch wearing little more than a Laker Girl uniform, a fairy who appears to shop at Victoria's Secret and a cowgirl with a skirt the size of a tea towel.

Anyone who has watched the evolution of women's Halloween costumes in the last several years will not be surprised that these images -- culled from the Web sites of some of the largest Halloween costume retailers -- are more strip club than storybook. Or that these and other costumes of questionable taste will be barely covering thousands of women who consider them escapist, harmless fun on Halloween.

''It's a night when even a nice girl can dress like a dominatrix and still hold her head up the next morning,'' said Linda M. Scott, the author of ''Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism'' (Palgrave Macmillan) and a professor of marketing at the University of Oxford in England.

The trend is so pervasive it has been written about by college students in campus newspapers, and Carlos Mencia, the comedian, jokes that Halloween should now be called Dress-Like-a-Whore Day.

But the abundance of risqu?ostumes that will be shrink-wrapped around legions of women come Oct. 31 prompts a larger question: Why have so many girls grown up to trade in Wonder Woman costumes for little more than Wonderbras?

''Decades after the second wave of the women's movement, you would expect more of a gender-neutral range of costumes,'' said Adie Nelson, the author of ''The Pink Dragon Is Female: Halloween Costumes and Gender Markers,'' an analysis of 469 children's costumes and how they reinforce traditional gender messages that was published in The Psychology of Women Quarterly in 2000.

Dr. Nelson, a professor of sociology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, said the trend toward overtly sexualized costumes actually begins with little girls. ''Heroic figures for women or considered icons of femininity are very much anchored in the femme fatale imagery,'' she said, adding that those include an assortment of Disney heroines, witches, cocktail waitresses, French maids and an ''interchangeable variety of beauty queens.''

While researching ''Pink Dragon,'' Dr. Nelson found that even costumes for little girls were gendered. Boys got to be computers while the girls were cupcakes. Today, there are bride costumes for little girls but one is hard pressed to find groom costumes for little boys. Additionally, Dr. Nelson said, the girls' costumes are designed in ways that create the semblance of a bust where there is none. ''Once they're older women it's just a continuation of that same gender trend,'' she said.

Men's costumes are generally goofy or grotesque ensembles with ''Animal House''-inspired names like Atomic Wedgie and Chug-A-Lug Beer Can. And when they dress up as police officers, firefighters and soldiers, they actually look like people in those professions. The same costumes for women are so tight and low-cut they are better suited for popping out of a cake than outlasting an emergency.

Obviously, however, many women see nothing wrong with making Halloween less about Snickers bars and SweeTarts and more about eye candy.

Rebecca Colby, 28, a library clerk in Milwaukee, said the appeal of sexy costumes lies in escaping the workaday, ho-hum dress code.

''I'm not normally going to wear a corset to go out,'' said Ms. Colby, who has masqueraded as a Gothic witch with a low-cut bodice, a minidress-wearing bumblebee, a flapper and, this year, most likely, a ''vixen pirate.''

''Even though you're in a costume when you go out to a party in a bar or something, you still want to look cute and sexy and feminine,'' she said.

Indeed, many women think that showing off their bodies ''is a mark of independence and security and confidence,'' said Pat Gill, the interim director of the Institute of Communications Research and a professor of gender and women's studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

It is a wonder gyms do not have ''get in shape for Halloween'' specials.

In her book ''Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk About Sexuality'' (Harvard University Press), Deborah Tolman, the director of the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality at San Francisco State University and a professor of human sexuality studies there, found that some 30 teenage girls she studied understood being sexy as ''being sexy for someone else, not for themselves,'' she said.

When the girls were asked what makes them feel sexy, they had difficulty answering, Dr. Tolman said, adding that they heard the question as ''What makes you look sexy?''

Many women's costumes, with their frilly baby-doll dresses and high-heeled Mary Janes, also evoke male Lolita fantasies and reinforce the larger cultural message that younger is hotter.

''It's not a good long-term strategy for women,'' Dr. Tolman said.

But does that mean women should not use Halloween as an excuse to shed a few inhibitions?

''I think it depends on the spirit in which you're doing it,'' Dr. Tolman said. ''I'm not going to go and say this is bad for all women.''